How Super Are Supermarkets?

    Buying e week's groceries is tiring. You want to get it over and done with quickly, so you head for the nearest supermarket, you find everything you need under one roof, and you feel glad that those days of going in and out of different shops in the high street are over. Supermarkets seem to be a big plus. There is a downside, though.

    In the UK 90% of all the food people consume is bought at 5 different supermarket chains. This makes these companies extremely powerful, which lets them use their huge buying power to squeeze small suppliers to get the best deal. Milk is a good example. Supermarkets like to use things like milk, which is the top of almost everyone's shopping list to attract customers. To offer the lowest price possible to the consumer, the supermarkets force dairy farmers to sell milk at less than the cost of production. Supermarkets guarantee their good profits while farmers are left struggling to make ends meet, and the taxpayer pays to support the system without even knowing it.

    It would be nice if local grocers supported local agriculture. But for the big supermarkets this just doesn't make sense. Supermarkets don't want little farmers thinking they can decide prices. So supermarkets have started a global search for the cheapest possible agricultural produce. In many supermarkets it is difficult to find anything which is produced locally.

    UK farmers used to grow a lot of apples. Not anymore. In 1999 36% of apples were imported. By 2015 the figure had risen to 80% and the domestic production of apples had fallen by two thirds. The consumer might just be happy to get a reasonably priced meal made up of foods from Thailand, Spain, Italy and Zambia, but we should also bear in mind the Influence on local producers.

    Then there's packaging. Supermarkets like everything to be packed and wrapped so it can be piled neatly on shelves. Supermarkets produce nearly 10 million tons of waste packaging in the UK every year, of which less 5%is recycled. Some supermarkets make sure that large recycling bins are obvious in their car parks, showing that they are environment-friendly. But that is just an image.

    When a new supermarket is planned there are claims about the number of new jobs that will be created. Unfortunately, the number of jobs lost in the area is larger than the number of new positions in the supermarket. On average each new supermarket leads to the loss of 276 jobs.

    However, the modern world is all about shopping, and the freedom to buy whatever you what, so it would be impossible to stop people shopping at some particular kind of shop. But some measures do need to be taken when small suppliers lose profits, local producers suffer, sea levels rise and jobs are lost, anyway, we can't just care about a free car park and special offers.

    "I didn't hear them call my name," explained Shelley Hennig to Active Teens (AT) as she talked about that exciting moment on national television when she won the honor of Miss Teen USA 2004. "Are you ready?" is what she heard. Then she said, "I shook my head no, and then they said 'yes' and it was announced again."

    It was four days after that life changing moment for the seventeen-year-old high school student from Destrehan, Louisiana — she was still on cloud nine.

    "I was so shocked! I never believed that it could actually really happen." Present in the audience that day were: her mother and father, older brother, her friends, and her dance teacher.

    Understanding why members of her family and her friends would be there, AT asked why her dance teacher had traveled so far to see her compete. "She's always been my role model. I've danced with her since I was six. She's been through so many difficulties and came through them all. I've learned to get over bad life's experiences and learned how to move on because of her."

    One of those bad life's experiences for Shelley happened three years ago when her brother Brad was killed in a drunk driving accident. He was 18. She found writing helped her get through the rough days. She said, "I write a lot about my brother. I write a lot, a lot, a lot..."

    As Miss Louisiana Teen, she traveled around the state speaking to teens about the dangers of drinking and driving. In her role as Miss Teen USA, Shelley will continue to speak to youth about safe driving, in addition to many other things to help the youth.

    When AT asked Miss Teen USA if she had any advice for our readers, she said, "Don't let anyone change you. Hang out with people that make you feel good about yourself. That way, it is easy to be yourself."

    Amazing concept images have shown what homes of the future could look like, as preparations are made for the world's first free from 3D-printed property (房产).

    Experts will build a house called Curve Appeal, which will be 3D-printed off-site before being put together on-site to create two outside walls, a roof and an inside part. These four main sections will then be joined together.

    Although 3D-printed buildings have been made before, this home - to be constructed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, later this year — will be the first of its kind, as it will contain no regular shapes or angles. The house is the creation of the design company WATG, based in London and California. The design for Curve Appeal draws inspiration from the Case Study House program.

    The architects leading the program were famed for constantly pushing the limits in terms of minimalist (极简主义) materials, and trying to create open-plan spaces that focused on enhancing (增强) natural light. In a written statement, a spokesman for WATG said, “Employing many of the same modem design principles, Curve Appeal is the next evolutionary step. It's important that the architecture and the environment work together harmoniously. The chosen site is steps away from the Tennessee River in a beautiful wooded, sunlit area.”

    WATG was awarded the first prize in the Freeform Home Design Challenge in 2016 and given prize money of $ 8,000 to make its plans a reality. The competition was aimed at architects, designers, engineers and artists. Participants were challenged to design a 600 to 800sq ft single-family home that rethinks traditional aesthetics (美学), ergonomics, construction, building systems and structure.

    Over the last year, WATG's Chicago office has been developing their design with Branch Technology. This project is currently underway, working towards breaking ground later this year. Once completed, the Curve Appeal home will have open and light-filled inside living spaces.

The situation is that familiar — deadlines are approaching, time runs out, disorder and confusion fills the day. The feeling is just as familiar — a slightly faster heart rate, and shortness of breath. Yes, it is panic time.

    It's too late to kick yourself with "I should have started on this sooner." or "It was a mistake to accept this tight deadline." The only thing left to deal with the situation is to panic more efficiently.

    ① Focus.

Panic happens when you are on an overload — too many things to do, too much pressure, too little time. But if you focus on the tasks that you need to take care of, and line them up in a logical list, you can have better control of a highly stressful and wild situation.

    ② Get rid of distractions.

    Time wasters and unnecessary activities are the last things you need during this time. Let everyone know you are on panic mode and should not be disturbed unless it is an emergency.

    ③ Watch your time.

    Don't be too engaged in one detail so that you reduce your timing for the other important details. Mind the time and deal with each task so that you can finish all of the required activities sufficiently.

    Try to solve a panic situation as quickly as you can so that you can rest and get back your energy and strength for the next one.

    Last year my children gifted me a stainless steel (不锈钢的) coffee plunger (法式按压咖啡壶). I love to start the day with a strong black coffee and couldn't wait to use it. I looked forward to the following morning's coffee making, knowing that I probably wouldn't smash (打碎) this plunger as easily as I had done so often in the past.

    But as I poured my first cup of coffee, the plunger spilled (洒出) all over the table. Thankfully no one was around to see my disappointed face! I kept trying, but each morning would see me wiping up the coffee. Then I realized that if I poured very slowly there would be no spilling.

    This was at first a very painful experience. My normal practice was to rush through breakfast so that I could get on with my day.

    But in time I learned not only to pour slowly but to enjoy the experience: the smell, the taste, and the stillness of a new day.

    It prompted (促使) me to reflect upon whether there were other areas of my life I was rushing through. Most of life, it seemed.

    I started to leave extra time to do even the most ordinary tasks. When shop owners would apologize for keeping me waiting, I'd say, "Not a problem, I'm not in a hurry." Even hanging out washing became pleasurable when a couple of extra minutes of standing still and listening to the birds singing in the trees around me became part of my routine.

    Besides, one of my favorite experiences living in the inner city for many years was sitting on the front doorstep of our home spending time with strangers. We sat on the steps, each of us with a cup of coffee in our hands, listening to each other's stories. It was one of the warmest things about living in a busy city. It was as if the world around us slowed to a pace (步伐) we could both handle.

    Stillness and quietness not only slow the pace of life, but also feed the soul, helping us to enjoy the world's small pleasures.

Biologists from the John Innes Centre in England discovered that plants have a biological process which divides their amount of stored energy by the length of the night. This solves the problem of how to portion out (分配) energy reserves during the night so that the plant can keep growing, yet not risk burning off all its stored energy.

While the sun shines, plants perform photosynthesis (光合作用). In this process, the plants change sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into stored energy in the form of long chains of sugar, called starch (淀粉). At night, the plants burn this stored starch to fuel continued growth.

"The calculations are precise so that plants prevent starvation but also make the most efficient use of their food," said study co-author Alison Smith. "If the starch store is used too fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted. "

The scientists studied the plant Arabidopsis, which is regarded as a model plant for experiments. To give the plants some math tests, the biologists let night arrive unexpectedly early or late for them.

During one of the exams, they shut off the lights early on them that had been grown with twelve-hour days and nights. Putting them into darkness after only an eight-hour day means they didn't have time to store as much starch as usual. And this forced the plants to adjust their normal nightly rhythm.

Amazingly, even after this day length trick, the plants did very well in their exams and ended up with just five percent of starch left over at the end of the night. They had neither starved, nor stored starch that could have been used to fuel more growth.

The authors suggested that similar biological calculators may explain how a migratory bird, the little stint, can make a five-thousand-kilometer journey to their summer habitat in the Arctic and arrive with enough fat reserves to survive only approximately half a day more, on average.

The results of the study were published in e Life.